The bad memories of Spain: from the goal of Yugoslavia that left it without a World Cup in 1974 to the blow against Papin's France in 1991

Yugoslavia,

and

.

France,

and

.

These six names have been engraved in the history of the great disappointments of the

on their way to World Cups and Euro Cups.

The first, still in black and white and with democracy just around the corner;

the second, one step away from the takeoff of the Olympic euphoria.

Spain

has only been left out of these great events ten times since the first World Cup was held in 1930. There have been six world championships and four European championships. And it has not always been due to demerits on the field. He did not play the World Cup in Uruguay in 30 because he did not sign up and neither did the one in France in 1938 because of the

.

But the first blow he took when he missed the World Cup in Switzerland in 1954. Tied for everything with Turkey, the innocent hand of an Italian boy decided that the Ottomans were the classified. Four years later,

Spain

would be out of the competition in Sweden after losing to Scotland and failing to win over Switzerland. These two disappointments were compounded by

order

not to play the 1960 Euro Cup in France as a boycott of the USSR. Nor were Germany, England and Italy.

However, it was in the 70s when Spain was erased from the appointments of nations.

From 70 to 76 he was not present at any.

An exponent of that generation of footballers who did not play a great championship was the fine Valencia midfielder

.

"We are left with the thorn in the face of not having faced the best teams in a tournament of that prestige, but we had no luck in the draws and then only one team qualified," he reminds EL MUNDO.

On the way to Mexico 70 they were beaten by

, who finished first ahead of Spain and Yugoslavia.

“They locked us up on a very small field where you couldn't play and the atmosphere was very strange.

That game marked us and then we fell in Helsinki against

».

Iribar slip and Yugoslavia goal

Later the USSR would cross to leave him out of the Belgian Euro (72) and, above all, a painful defeat would come against

Yugoslavia

that deprived them of playing the '74 World Cup in Germany.

“We had to play a playoff game in Frankfurt.

In the 13th minute, the center-back

headed a free-kick, Iribar slipped, managed to reject the ball but it fell to the defender's feet, ”says the veteran ex-footballer.

group

would have another bitter drink left: the 1976 Euro Cup, from which with a change in format and some crosses prior to the final phase,

expelled them

.

"We always competed well, but no luck," sums up Claramunt.

France and the sunset of the Quinta del Buitre

From that moment, Spain qualified for all the big tournaments until 1992. The disappointment this time was already in color. On October 12, 1991, with the Barcelona Games and the Seville Expo on the horizon, the team fell 1-2 at Villamarín against an intractable France led by

and with

as the star a few days after receiving the Ball. de Oro. "We came to that game with very few options and they were a very powerful opponent," says

, who that night scored the first of his only three goals as an international "finishing off a center I think from Martín Vázquez at the far post" .

He confesses that he remembers little of that duel, his second officer with La Roja. The first was a painful 2-0 defeat against

that left a deep impression, but was not key in the non-qualification. France did not lose a single game and in the two direct confrontations it was superior, so much so that its 3-1 victory in Paris caused the relief of

on the bench.

could do nothing

with a team in transition due to the decline of Quinta de Buitre. "I did not live through the classification, but it was difficult for those of us who joined young," admits the Asturian, who scored another goal against Czechoslovakia in the last and inconsequential game. Spain was third in the group and UEFA chose

to replace Yugoslavia by the outbreak of the Balkan War.

There were no more doubts until a decade later, when Spain had to win a play-off from

to be in Euro 2004 in Portugal.

He also needed that double game, with Slovakia as a victim, to reach the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

If there will be the next line in the history of failures, it is in the hands of Luis Enrique.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• sports

• Spain Soccer Team

• HBPR

Interview Unai Simón: "Sometimes they flatter me and I don't know why"

2022 Soccer World Cup Sweden defeats Greece and snatches the lead from Spain

2022 World CupIbrahimovic returns to the Swedish national team to face Spain

See links of interest

• La Palma volcano

• Last News

• Translator

• What

• Holidays 2021

• 2022 business calendar

• Home THE WORLD TODAY

• Master investigative journalism